Know When To Get Help - Performance Management Consulting

Most people dread performance appraisals because it is tiring and tedious, and people believe their jobs may be on the line. Of course, performance appraisals are really quite useful because management can fully make sense out of the things that have been happening in the company. Through a yearly performance appraisal of employees, companies can finally be able to find out about the reasons behind why the company is losing money here or there.

1. Perform Appraisals In A Serious And Scientific Manner

As the part of the management that ultimately runs the company, the superiors who are actually doing all that performance appraisals year after year, they should really take this task seriously so that that the company will be able to greatly benefit from the yearly performance appraisals of the employees. In case the people who are going to head these yearly employee performance appraisals are actually clueless on what they should really do, they actually have the option to get some performance management consulting so that they will able to know what people from the management like them should really do when its time to once again make those employee performance appraisals.

Employee performance appraisal may seem to be a scary and highly difficult task but through good performance management consulting, you are sure to be able to get the ideas as well as the strategies that other companies are doing with the aid of performance management consulting. When it comes to performance management consulting, experts in the field of business management will actually instruct company heads that before they actually go on to their employees' performance appraisal meetings. Whether they will give out a presentation to other company heads or just be talking to the employees, performance management consulting will actually advice the management to actually make a draft of what they are going to report first before actually going out to the meeting and fumbling on the employee appraisal meeting.

2. Appraisals Should Focus On Positive, Not Negative Aspects

When it comes to performance management consulting, it is highly recommended that you plan everything out from the beginning so that the whole process of the yearly employee performance appraisal will go on smoothly and without any hitch. The performance management consulting activity should be able to help out the company's management to actually be able to produce clear and concise ways for them to make their thoughts be fully understood throughout the performance appraisal report. Performance planning is definitely the key to a well-executed performance appraisal meeting according to the performance management consulting.

- Heed the advice of the performance management consulting group
- Decide on the important factors
- Tackle those factors

3. It Works!

According to the research from the performance management consulting, top companies today are using the performance management process to eliminate a best-effort directed culture in the company, instead the company should move on towards a results-driven culture instead, the next is to be able to establish as well as reinforce the extreme importance of the company's core competencies and lastly, the company should also be able to target the poor performers in the company for termination.

Based on this research from the performance management consulting, the management should be able to target he poor performers in their company by actively weeding out the bottom 10 percent of the pack while completely nurturing the upper 20 percent of the company's employees to be able to sustain their dedication and good work for the company. It is extremely important that the company is able to full acknowledge the presence of such beings in there company so as to be able to further motivate them into doing good for the companywhile the bottom feeders need not be kept in the company anymore since they are hired to do their best and not to actually become a liability to the company.

Human-Based Workflows and Project Management Software

Workflows exist in some form at every company, in every industry. Traditionally, the term has been used to describe transactional processes. Credit card information, for example, is submitted on a website. The information is then sent to banks for approval and to a billing system for invoicing, which results in a message being sent to the shipping system for delivery. These types of transaction workflows, primarily relaying data between systems based on a static set of rules, require very little human intervention. They are typically automated using business process management (BPM) software or custom coded applications.

Human-based workflows on the other hand are usually manually managed and tracked. Meetings, phone calls, paper trails, spreadsheets, emails and desktop applications are typically utilized by business professionals as a means to keep the flow of information orderly. In most cases, a lack of efficiency is unavoidable. Using many different tools and methods to track workflows simultaneously leads to chaos. Visibility of a project’s status, and more importantly, what is causing its hindrance becomes increasingly ambiguous.

Many human-based business workflows involve intellectual property or process innovations that give companies an edge over competitors. In a small vertical industry successfully managing workflows can make or break a company. Because of the diversity of workflows and the ways in which they are managed, it is difficult to find off-the-shelf project management software that is flexible enough to adapt to any company’s set of unique workflows and management style. For this reason, many companies feel trapped, worried that the only option is to develop a custom solution. Developing custom project management software, however, is a costly and lengthy process.

Only Interneer Intellect solves this problem, through catering to the human-based business workflow market. It enables the business user to capture workflows using simple drag-and-drop capabilities. It also incorporates many features that automate and streamline the business process: it is web-based, facilitating real-time collaboration; automatically creates databases; automates workflows; and allows easy reporting, document management and project tracking with multi-user support.

As project management technology evolves, the benefits of automating workflows to gain efficiency, visibility and cut costs becomes increasingly apparent. With the advent of tools like Interneer Intellect this can be accomplished rapidly, easily and inexpensively.

Guide to Project Management

A project is an assignment or task taken up to achieve a specific goal. The development and introduction of new services or of a management information system are instances of a project. A project is different from the continuous or day-to-day processes of a company. It is confined within cost, time, and quality constraints. As a consequence to it a special team of expertise is appointed to manage a project.

Project management as the name suggests is all about nurturing or handling a project. This is done with the aid of requisite knowledge about the project, skills and techniques to complete the project within fixed tenure and resources. Project management involves step-by-step procedure along with a prudent approach towards the project.

At first the concerned organization prepares an outline of the project. This includes knowing and writing down what the project is all about, the cost involved in the project, the amount of resources needed. A thought is also given to the tentatively earliest possible time within which the project can be completed. Once the budget and other nitty-gritty’s about the project are known the organization looks for sponsors and a project manager. If the individual sponsoring the project is skilled and efficient enough, he too can be its manager.

The project manager then appoints a team of people to work under him. Together with the team the manager of the project prepares a project plan. This plan is not just about the cost and time factors but also regarding the manner in which the project is to be initiated and covered up later. This requires lot of discussions and settlements between the project manager and the team of employees.

The implementation stage of a project is where the project is put to execution as decided. While executing a project its progress and managing changes need to be carefully monitored. At this point in order to harness the resources well the project manager might feel the need to expand his team. For instance marketing of the product may be suffering due to more heed being paid to its manufacturing or due to lack of good marketing executives. This may also involve contacting new companies and organizations. Thus a set of people needs to be readily appointed to take charge of this. However then it is always at the onus of the manager to equip the new members with a proper and complete knowledge of the project. In some cases training may also be imparted.

After all these stages are over, the project comes at its stage of completion. This is known as the close down stage. Here the project manager safely handles the completed work in the hand of the client or the customer. Once a project is finished and handed over, a project review meeting should be held to study the work done, encourage if something good was discovered during the project and also learn from the mistakes made. These should also be documented and later published in warts and all. This acts as a great help in future assignments.

Extracting Real Benefits From Travel & Expense Management

For your company to truly reap the rewards of a structured corporate travel policy, it must focus on one thing above all else: compliance. Unfortunately, while the explosion in convenient Self Booking Tools gives you a lot more freedom of choice, it also makes compliance a great deal more challenging. Any technology that supports an increase in compliance to policy has merit; it will save your company money and bring back the benefits of corporate travel.

Today's diversity of choice in self booking tools makes compliance through denial of access a very difficult protocol to enforce. What you really need is a funnel through which 100% of your company's travel activity must pass. In the corporate world, the only viable funnel is the payment mechanism – getting paid is the ultimate leveler. If you use a corporate credit card as the payment mechanism, supported by an expense management solution, and suppliers who can report back to you a reasonable level of data, you stand a very good chance of supporting the compliance objective.

A compliance-friendly Expense Management Solution (EMS)
An expense management solution which processes card transactions (and possesses decent workflow) requires the traveler to personally justify all deviations from policy to their supervisor – on a transaction by transaction basis. Just as importantly, the warehoused individual transactions give the corporate travel manager the opportunity to conduct spend analysis and examine individual and aggregate behaviors.

You might argue that this is after the act, but it still encourages compliance. As per all card based procurement systems, if an employee consistently deviates from company policy, they may be penalized (e.g. card withdrawal, official warning, employment termination, etc.). The threat of negative repercussions acts as a deterrent to card misuse, thereby increasing the level of compliance.

The benefits of policy compliance

80% of the business case benefits of corporate travel will come from travel policy compliance. This requires:

• Sound policy and procedures;
• A comprehensive communication strategy;
• A gate through which all activity can be channeled (the card and the expense management solution); and
• Tools to monitor and measure compliance.

There will also be some peripheral benefits to be gained from an expense management solution in the pre-trip phase:

For instance:

• The traveler can use the work flow component of an expense management solution to create travel request and approval records rather than using something less structured like emails.

• Using the expense management solution, the traveler can create a “commitment” record at the time of booking for subsequent matching of the credit card transaction when it comes through.

• You can obtain a download of trip data from your TMC, and travelers can seek to match that against trip card transactions, thus reducing the quantity of manual entries required of the travel coordinator.

• The expense management solution provides travelers with a real-time log of commitments beyond what might be recorded in a personal diary.

How does it apply to your company?

In looking at the business case for this exercise, you do need to closely examine a number of factors to determine the benefits you will actually realize:

• There are no industry-wide standards, and the market tends to work as a series of isolated closed provider loops – your efficiencies will be greatest if can conduct your business entirely within one closed loop. It is up to you to determine if you can obtain maximum purchasing power in this environment.

• The importance you place on understanding the cumulative value of travel booked but not yet paid.

• The extent to which you can source the data you require from your travelers via a TMC data feed and, consequently, the keystroke savings you can achieve for those travelers.

• The productivity gains you will obtain for your travelers by virtue of them setting up trip details in your Expense Management Solution (EMS) at time of booking rather than at time of arrival of the card transaction.

The combination of Electronic Travel Management and Expense Management is an important subset of eProcurement, and it is subject to the same challenges facing all eProcurement initiatives over the past 10 years – industry standards, supplier participation, and a seamless marketplace. Until these elements are all in place, greatest advantage will be gained by companies that focus on the big picture of where they can achieve maximum purchasing value with reasonable purchasing productivity – usually based on being able to perform an analysis of spend patterns and behavior.

Employee Performance Management

Fixation of compensation or wage rates for different categories of employees in a company is an important task of management. The employees are not only concerned with the wages received but also concerned with the level wages received by same level of employees in similar organizations. Hence wage structure may be considered very important. The relative wage-rules must be fixed carefully, because they have implications for promotion, transfer, seniority and other important personnel matters.

Wage plan should possess certain fundamental characteristics if the long term interests of the worker, management and the consumer are to be served. The wage plan must be linked with the productivity of the workers. Unless higher pay scales of workers are linked in some way to the productivity of workers, a wage plan will not be fair either to the management or to the consumers.

Basic wage for each job classification should be related to skill job requirements of job. Due consideration should be given to such factors as skill, length of time required in learning, versatility required and working conditions. In all fairness to management, the plan should usually result in a reduction of unit cost of manufacture, making possible lower prices and higher profits.

In all fairness to the consumers a share of higher efficiency should be passed on to them by way of lower price. This will be possible when there is reduction in cost due to higher efficiency. Thus the wage plan must ensure that all participate share the gains of higher productivity. The wage plan should include an incentive system for the efficient workers. The system should ensure higher pay to the workers who perform work at higher level of efficiency. The wage plan should guarantee minimum wage to protect the interest of workers against conditions over which they have no control.

Crisis Management

The Internet may have opened worlds for businesses and consumers, but it has also created a public relations nightmare for businesses. Forums, opinion Web sites, blogs, and anything that is publishable can smear a company's name in moments.

Remember, "Yours Is a Very Bad Hotel" presentation that described one customer's bad experience with a hotel chain? Hotels are run by humans. Humans make mistakes. It's how you handle the mistakes that can make the difference in customer service. Since the hotel's employees didn't try to help the customer overcome a bad situation, the customer lashed back and bloggers blogged it.

If the hotel is on top of its game, it would unleash its crisis management (also known as reputation management) team to salvage its reputation while it can. It's possible for a company to overcome bad PR and come out ahead as in the case of PG&E (California's Pacific Gas and Electric company).

Another strategy is to use Internet monitoring to monitor online articles regarding a company's activities to prepare for negative publicity. Some go further and monitor chat rooms, newsgroups, and online discussion forums.

It's like the story of the town gossip who spread false stories about its people. One day, he felt terrible and went to the chaplain [Rabbi, pastor, priest, or other &mdash take your pick] to ask for forgiveness. The chaplain said,"I will forgive you, but you must do something first."

"Take a feather pillow, cut it open, and scatter the feathers to the winds." The man thought this was a strange request, but it was a simple enough task, and he did it gladly. When he returned to tell the chaplain that he had done it, the chaplain said, "Now, go and gather the feathers. Because you can no more make amends for the damage your words have done than you can recollect the feathers."

The same can happen to a company without a crisis management plan in place. It's possible to survive the crisis and thrive as PG&E did. Don't expect Worldcom to pull out of its Enron-like mess. Fraud is not excusable. And Martha Stewart? She has hired a public relations strategist firm in an effort to do damage control. It'll be worth watching to see what happens in her case and how the PR firm attempts to save her reputation. Did you know there is a recall on one of her products? Adds fuel to the fire, doesn't it?

Corporate Identity Management

Competition is great in the market world today and in order to get your business noticed, you will need good corporate identity management. You need to bring together all of the good qualities of your company as well as emphasizing what a great benefit your company will be to those who use your services. Good corporate identity management will do just that if handled properly. It will give your business a clear positioning towards your customers and prospective customers as well as your staff, suppliers, authorities, and even your competition. By making your business easily recognizable to those who want what your selling, corporate identity management will also play a key role in the development and maintenance of your business, and keep it running like a well oiled machine. In today's world, we are all bombarded with information, every waking minute. Globalization increases competition, products are interchangeable, and new products come to the market at an ever faster rate. Every business is competing for our attention. Selection of a supplier is not solely based on price or availability anymore; customers have the luxury to choose suppliers they can identify with. That is why your company will need an edge of some kind so that when people decide they need the service that you're offering, either your logo, or a witty saying, will automatically pop into the consumers head, in turn, they will seek you out. However, your business image is not the only thing that will get you noticed. How the press and advertisers perceive your company will rub off on the public also, so you will always need to stay consistent and make a good impression.

Consistency is very important in the business world today, unless you want to loose your business before it even gets off the ground, you can't say one thing then completely do another. In order to ensure consistency in communication, you may need to ask for help from someone who know what their doing when it comes to corporate identity management. There are many good organizations that can help you do just that. They can take your company and create something that will be distributed all over, no matter what you're selling. Another important aspect is that your staff needs to be able to identity with your company's corporate identity so they feel comfortable with it. From your company's reception area, to telephone manners, the design of all printed materials and Web sites, to public relations, every aspect of a business has to breathe its Corporate Identity to be believable and distinguishable. Only then will your business have the chance of being taken seriously in the market, and ultimately to succeed. The primary idea behind a corporate identity program is everything your business does, own, and service it provides, should project a clear idea of what you and your business goals are. A good corporate identity management system works well and keeps the important things on tract.

Change Management: Getting It Right

Change management is something many companies may face throughout their existence. Whether something simple or a complete change, various things can be done to allow for a successful change. Management of the change effectively will allow for the best overall final product but it really just is not that simple. But, there are ways to get effective change management in such a way as to contribute to the betterment of the company.

Change management is the management of change. In that, you will realize that there is potential for failure. It could go wrong. To keep this from happening though, there are systems that can be put into place to help throughout the process of change, no matter how large or small it may be. In many cases, you will find many individuals and organizations willing to help manage the change for you. It is important to make sure that these individuals have the company’s best intentions at heart. It should be more than just a job, but something that they believe in.

You can also find a wide range of computer software programs as well as applications that can be used to help with change management. Making it successful is the key and to do this. You will find that many opportunities are available. You can and should determine the best method for your needs based on the availability, the methods used as well as experience and relevance of anything that is used to make change management happen.

You will find a wide range of help when it comes to change management. There are resources that can help guide you through the process as well as much advice to allow you to make the right decisions. Effective change management starts at the beginning with planning and experience. For your company to benefit from change management, it helps to be as knowledgeable as possible about these factors.

Can A Learning Management System Help Your Business?

It is well known in today's time that knowledge is power and the more training your employee's receive, the better the employee, thus having a more successful company. Businesses today need to be constantly looking for a more efficient way to manage their business and it's a smart idea to invest in a learning management system that will help those within the business run a better business. The more knowledgeable the employee the stronger partnership between boss and employee, the better everything runs like a well oiled machine. Businesses are increasingly focusing on knowledge as an asset for survival in a competitive world. Good learning management systems are required if you want your business to be successful. A learning management system gives the stability for a businesses online learning environment by allowing the management, delivery and tracking of different types of learning for employees, stakeholders and customers. A strong learning management system should incorporate with other departments, such as human resources, accounting and e-commerce, so administrative and supervisory tasks can be streamlined and automated and the overall cost and impact of education can be tracked and evaluated. Choosing or having a learning management system designed specifically with your business prospects can be one of the best decisions you can make for you and your employees.

Many companies are starting to realize that by using a learning management system directly in software form, allows their employees to learn better business while they are on the job. This holds down the cost of online classes, or paying an instructor to come in and teach them. The developers of learning management system software are committed to continued learning, development, and knowledge. Knowledge and expertise are a powerful edge in today's harsh business climate. Usually, Learning Management Software isn't typically for companies with only a handful of employees. Most companies that implement learning management systems are medium-to-large-sized organizations with many users of the system with diverse learning and e-learning activities. However, smaller businesses are everywhere; the need to make learning management systems for smaller businesses is in great demand. The owners of small businesses realize that even though they are not huge companies, their employees can still learn valuable business techniques that will help their businesses. Learning management systems can be a powerful tool that will deliver the information needed and manage all training, education, and certification (if needed). Companies large and small must be able to distribute, manage, and assess, an educational program that can be integrated within their own systems in an efficient, and low-cost manner. In the future, the companies that stay in the know will be the ones that have the learning management systems software that keeps up with employee continuing education, development, and e-learning, and any other learning activities needed. Learning management systems will be the foundation of all learning within the company, and a company that continues to learn will continue to grow, and growing is what having a profitable business is what it's all about.

A Guide To Performance Management

Nowadays, a great significance is being given to Performance Management, as companies incorporate them in their effective management strategies. However, a lot of people find this process a complicated one, mostly because of the many options that it offers – on the organization, a specific department/branch, a product or service, and on employees, among others.

In order to minimize this confusion, the items below will give you a general idea of what Performance Management is all about as well as the activities that are involved in this process.

What is Performance Management?

Performance management is a process that provides both the manager and the employee (the person being supervised) the chance to determine the shared goals that relates to the overall goals of the company by looking into employee performance.

Why is it important?

Performance Management establishes an outline for employees and their performance managers to assess and to come to an agreement on certain concerns and aims that are in accordance with the overall structure of the company. This enables both parties to have clear objectives that would help them in their work and in their professional growth.

Who conducts Performance Management?

Performance Management is carried out by those who oversee the performance of other people – work/team leaders, supervisors, managers, directors, or department chairs.

What are the processes involved?

Below are the phases of the Performance Management process:

1. Planning

This phase of Performance Management process includes establishing job descriptions and identifying the employee’s essential functions as well as defining the strategic plan/s of the department or the company as a whole.

Job Description

A job description is used to advertise a vacant position, which typically specifies the following:

- The specific functions, tasks, and responsibilities of the position
- The amount of time needed to act upon each function
- The qualifications needed (skills, knowledge and abilities) to perform the job
- The physical and mental requirements of the position
- Salary range for the position
- To whom the position reports

Job descriptions should be disclosed to the employee as soon as he or she is hired. Note, however, that job descriptions are listed using words that make it difficult to measure the employee’s performance. They are in contrast with competencies, which list the skills needed in performing such tasks and are described using terms that can be measured.

Strategic Plan

In effect, a strategic plan tells you three things:

- Where the company is heading in the coming year/s.
- How the company is going to get there.
- How the company will know if it is already there or not.

Included in a strategic plan are the following:

Mission statement – the primary reason why your department (or company) exists.

Goals – associated with the mission statement, they determine the results that will advance said statement/s.

Strategic initiatives – specifies definite steps that must be taken to accomplish each goal. It is a dynamic process, usually examined during periods such as one or two years.

2. Developing

This phase of Performance Management process includes developing performance standards, which offers a scale that describes how a specific job should be performed in order to meet (or exceed) expectations. They are explained to newly hired employees and are later used to evaluate work performance.

Performance standards are generally outlined with the help of the employees who actually perform the tasks or functions. There are a number of advantages with this approach:

- The standards will be suitable to the requirements of the job
- The standards will be applicable to actual work conditions
- The standards will be easily understood by the employee (and performance manager as well)
- The standards will be acknowledged (and received) by the employee and the performance manager

Standards of performance are usually in the form of ratings (1 to 5, A to E) that are used by performance managers to rate the employee’s actual level of performance.

3. Monitoring

This phase of the Performance Management process includes monitoring employee’s work performances and giving feedback about them.

As the basis of feedback, observations should be verifiable: they should involve noticeable and work-related facts, events, behaviors, actions, statements, and results. Feedback of this type is called behavioral feedback, and they help employees improve and/or sustain good performance by precisely identifying the areas that the employee needs to improve without judging his or her character or motives.

4. Rating

This phase includes conducting performance evaluations. This is the critical aspect of the Performance Management process, especially because it is important for performance managers to arrive at an unbiased assessment.

A performance appraisal form has the following features:

- Employee information
- Performance standards
- Rating scale
- Signatures
- Employee performance development recommendations
- Employee comments
- Employee’s Self-appraisal

Why conduct performance appraisals? It provides an opportunity to improve performance in the future not only for employees, but for managers as well. Performance appraisals enable managers to acquire information from employees that will help them make employee's jobs more productive.

5. Development Planning

This phase of the Performance Management process includes establishing plans for improved employee performance and development goals. This advances the overall goal of the company and at the same time increases the quality of work by employees by:

- Encouraging constant learning and professional growth.
- Helping employees maintain the level of performance that meets (and exceeds) expectations.
- Improving job - or career-related skills and experience.

In closing, Performance Management is a process that, when executed fairly and effectively, can improve the quality of the company’s workforce, raise standards, increase job satisfaction, and develop professionalism and expertise that would benefit not only the employees but the entire organization as well.

Absence Management and Workforce Management

That absence management is a key component of workforce management does not really need an explicit mention. However, planned and unplanned absence is a universal fact of work and many organizations might take it as something that cannot be avoided.

There are ways to minimize both absence and its impact. First, we need to look the factors that cause absence, particularly unplanned absence that is more disruptive to work.

Reasons for Absence


SHORT-TERM SICKNESS: Short-term sickness is a major contributor to unplanned absence. An employee might call in sick, or produce some kind of certificate to prove the sickness
LONG-TERM SICKNESS: This kind of absence is usually covered by a certificate
UNAUTHORIZED ABSENCE OR PERSISTENT LATECOMING: The employee might just absent himself or herself without any excuse, or might be a habitual latecomer
AUTHORIZED ABSENCE: Employees are entitled to different kinds of leave under the provisions of employment laws. These include annual vacations, maternity (and paternity) leave, educational leave, and so on. These kinds of absence can be scheduled and alternative work arrangements can be made through advance planning


Measuring Absence and its Cost

Many organizations do not take the trouble to find out the cost of employee absence, the reasons for the absence and ways of reducing its impact. With proper focus, absence is controllable to some extent, and the resultant benefits can be significant.

By accumulating absent hours (including late hours) and comparing it to total available hours during the period, we can calculate the percentage of time lost owing to absence. By comparing the percentage for different periods, the trend of absence can be monitored.

By department and section wise monitoring of the trend, it might even be possible to identify some of the reasons underlying high absenteeism. For example, poor working conditions or a bad manager or supervisor might be aggravating the problem in a department or section.

Absence can also be measured by individual workers. The number and length of absences of each employee during a 52-week period is noted. Problem employees can be identified and the reasons underlying their absence can be investigated.

Policies and Actions for Absence Management

Surveys have revealed that sickness is a major factor for absence. The studies also indicate that stress-related absence is increasing compared to earlier periods.

Absence management starts with clear policies for allowing employees to take time off due to sickness. The policies should meet the minimum requirements under the law, and can be more liberal to attract better employees.

The policies must be communicated clearly to employees. In particular, employees must be fully aware of the procedures for availing sick leave, such as whom to notify, when a doctor's certificate or examination by company doctor is required and also any return-to-work interview requirements.

Implement systems to measure absence by departments/sections and by employee. Seeking the help of occupational health professionals to reduce the incidence sickness and stress can help reduce incidence of occupational health and injury problems.

Unacceptably high and persistent levels of absence need to be handled through disciplinary procedures.

Conclusion

Absence management is an important component of workforce management. Absences can occur owing to different factors. Managing absences start with the organization measuring the levels of absence and identifying the reasons for it. Once a clear picture is available, organizations would find it easier to tackle unacceptably high levels of absence.

Studies indicate that sickness and stress are major contributory factors to absence. These are unplanned absences and cause more disruption. We look at sickness absence in more detail in a separate article.